


holly

by lizzieraindrops



Series: A midnight study in purple [3]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, helsinki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-20 19:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6022735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzieraindrops/pseuds/lizzieraindrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veera is all alone in the aftermath of Helsinki. A speculative piece based off the last panel of the Rachel issue. A oneshot originally posted for a prompt <a href="http://lizzieraindrops.tumblr.com/post/138551944759/veera-holly">on tumblr</a>.</p><p>
  <i>Holly: foresight</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	holly

Soon she is deep enough into the woods that even she can no longer hear the screams, the snapping of flames. She stumbles to a stop, panting. She’s shaking, and it’s not the regular nervousness sparking along her forearms in ephemeral tremors, but a full-body quake radiating from her core.

The cold, open air behind her feels like bird claws scratching at her neck, even with her hood pulled up, so she presses herself against the nearest, largest tree. She leans as much of her weight as she can into the scaly texture of the irregular bark. Her breath heaves against the impassive wood.

_Gone. They’re all gone._

Her shaking redoubles in an aftershock of grief to follow the terror. She slides down the tree trunk, bristling bark catching cotton with an abominable rustle, until she’s nestled between two arching roots. Her knees fold into her chest and her arms wrap around them, and she bows her head as if in mourning. She is.

_I am the only one left. I am the last._

There is no going back. She can see what would happen if she did as clearly as a premonition. A needle to the neck, most likely. Her body, slack and lifeless (just like  _hers_. And hers. And hers). Her life consumed and her self stamped out of existence beneath the hooves of that raging fire. She knows too much to be left alive.

She has to look forward. But the future is shadowed and impenetrable, and she hasn’t the faintest clue where to start. She isn’t the kind of person she reads about: she’s just a terrified homeschooled teenage girl with a handful of fire stolen from the gods. It has burned her before and it will most certainly burn her again.

The chill silence, while preferable to screams, is unbearable.

Suddenly, she longs for the sound of the sea’s surf. It has always calmed her; and perhaps the presence of water will cool her burning hands, soothe her scorched heart. She’ll go to the sea. Flee across it, if she can figure out a way. She doesn’t know. One of the few things she  _does_  know is that the tide won’t bring her sisters back to her like foam, because they’re dead.

Her shakes linger, but after an unknowable amount of time, her breathing has slowed. Very carefully and deliberately, she sinks the heels of her hands and feet into the cold dirt. Legs quivering, she presses herself upward. When she finally rises to standing, she holds as still as a deer.

_Their tales are over. But mine is not. There are no happy endings, because this nightmare never ends. Not for any of us. But maybe someday, I will find a way make it stop._

One thing she is certain of with the unyielding conviction of foresight.

She will never let herself be  _held_  by them again. She is her own; on her own. 

Alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Littered with my customary references to Peter S. Beagle's _The Last Unicorn_.


End file.
